“NO ONE would ever choose to live here on purpose.”
His declaration hung in the air as we locked eyes over the soda fountain counter.
I cleared my throat before replying.
“Well… I live here on purpose….”
He stared at me in disbelief.
Our conversation ended on a light-hearted note as he walked out the door, but his words stayed with me for the rest of the day.
I know it doesn’t make sense at first glance. Why would anyone choose to stay in this tiny rural town with a dwindling population of 175?
Back in the early days, I didn’t have an answer.
“There’s nothing for me here…”
That’s what I used to tell myself.
There were few people our age, no young moms, and no one who shared my interests.
So in response, I wrote it off. I didn’t try. I looked to surrounding towns for entertainment and connection. I traveled away as much as possible. I put minimal effort into cultivating relationships here.
Not surprisingly, my beliefs became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then something shifted.
I began to wonder… what would happen if we applied our full energy and intention into this place? What would happen if we stopped waiting for someone else to create opportunity and picked up the torch ourselves?
In that moment, everything changed.
I began to see our area with fresh eyes. We forged fledging connections. I started to fall in love with this quirky, windblown place. Opportunity appeared from seemingly nowhere.
The funny thing? These things had been there all along, I simply had to DIG IN to find them.
Make no mistake— community is not easy. Our struggles with opening a charter school in this town just keep coming…
We’re incredibly short-staffed at the soda fountain, which brings a whole host of challenges…
I caught wind of fresh (ridiculous) gossip circulating in the neighboring town about us this week…
It’s not rainbows and butterflies all the time.
There are days I declare that I’m moving to the mountains to become a hermit.
BUT.
I still wouldn’t trade this messy work of community for the world.
So friend— try it. Invest your love and time into your place, wherever that may be, and see what happens.
It might not be easy, but it will absolutely be worth it.
Digging in,
-Jill
P.S. Looking for ideas on cultivating community where you live? My recent podcast with Norm Van Eden Petersman of Strong Towns rocked my world. You’ll love it.
Spot on. Recently moved back to my hometown of 619 people after being gone for school and career since 1980. Several of my classmates who stayed here farming and for other related reasons have done an outstanding job of digging in and the community has continued to thrive all these years
Right when you say small community is the best community You grow connections that you’ve never would in a larger area and you can reach out to people who need help there’s a wealth of information out there and the older generation has it we need to glean all we can from them. But also important for us to share what we have with them too
Everything you wrote – I am feeling, to the point of despair. I think I’ve even tried to “dig in” (5 years so far). I bake and bring goodies to the neighbors, I’ve tried doing bible studies at a few local churches (to get to know people in our little community) over the years, the kids and I have gone to a church almost every Sunday for the last several years (they do not have a woman’s group study), we buy groceries at our small town grocery store, I buy feed from our small town elevator, get hay and straw from another local guy, our son is in the community basketball program and our daughter takes riding lessons at a local trainer. All this to say, and I still feel that we are outsiders. I talk to everyone all the time and I still feel that we don’t belong here – like there is someplace else I’m supposed to be living. Your article brings me encouragement though. Maybe one day, I will belong here, after I’ve been “dug in” for a while.